Here are some of the languages I am learning or shall learn.
I’d like to read German literature and visit Germany someday. Originally I studied it as an elective in school. It was very fun — my teacher grew up in Germany, and she’d tell this young American audience all about the country—how they had a shopping street called Der Zeil, were blunt but loyal friends, earned money for recycling, ate white asparagus, made politically satirical parade floats for Karneval, and so on. So in addition to the perk of German literature, I associate it with fond memories.
I’d like to read Roman literature — Virgil, Juvenal, the works. I also find the sound and grammar beautiful.
Latin is such a beautiful language, but by far the most useless one I know; the only real reason to learn it is to read poems and plays by a handful of people who have been dead for hundreds or thousands of years. Some people also say they learn Latin to help them study law, medicine, or English etymology, which I personally don’t consider a strong reason for torturing yourself with the passive periphrastic or the dozens of verb endings. Finding people offline who know the language is almost impossible outside of academic settings. And even then, most people who “know” the language can only read it – most Latin classes never focus on using it conversationally. Neither are there many websites, YouTube channels, music, or modern books in Latin.
Almost all of my interests align with the strong suits of Russian culture – literature, classical music, art, modern history, ice-skating, and physics. I also happen to think Russian is the most beautiful language. I like the Slavic languages generally, but unlike the other ones, Russian’s spoken by many people.
Russian verbs, stress shifts, and consonant mutations can be confusing at first, but you’ll grow used to most of them over time. Russian cursive also isn’t as difficult as people on the Internet like to say it is. Personally, the hardest long-term challenge of the language has been keeping track of all the prefixes and perfective forms verbs can have.
It is an abundant language in terms of resources. There are probably hundreds of Russian graded readers and textbooks (I use these), and a lot of books and websites have been (and still are) made in Russian. The yields of learning it are very rich; not only because of the artists I mentioned earlier, but because it’s spoken a lot in general. The Russian-speaking internet is considerably large; in 2013, it was the second most spoken language online. Also, even if you never meet any Russian speakers, learning Russian will help you understand considerable amounts of Serbian, Ukrainian, Polish, and so on. (Although learning Interslavic is better for that purpose.)
I have heard stories online of people recieving comments about “supporting imperialism/the war” when they say they’re learning Russian. In my experience, though, pretty much everyone offline is normal about it. Depending on where you live, though, things may be different.
My parents are from Vietnam and they’re planning to take me to the old country soon. Moreover, as a Vietnamese-American, I dine, shop, celebrate holidays, and generally hang out in places where people expect me to speak the language. It’s almost shameful when I cannot, and even more so that I can speak Russian and German better.
Page created April 13, 2024.